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Sunday, January 21, 2018

The benefits of doing free voice acting work

How do you make money voice acting?
Well, there's not exactly one easy answer, or you know what they say:
everybody would be doing it. From auditioning to networking to just
being at the right place at the right time, it's a multifaceted
obstacle every voice actor must continue to learn about or risk
backsliding. Compared to the difficulty of pinning down paid work,
however, there is usually an abundance of free work to be had on the
internet – YouTube animations, video game mods, comic dubs, I'm
sure you know the drill by now.

As a professional voice actor, you
might say signing yourself up for free labor is a waste of time.
There is money to be had in voice over, and clearly it's not with
free work, right? Make way for the payin' customers, why don'tcha.

However, to completely overlook the
above categories (YouTube, game mods, yada yada) is to often overlook
some critical parts of expanding one's voice over career. This does
not mean you should be devoting 100% of your time to trying out for
Abridged Series #5,880,701, or that you shouldn't weigh the pros and
cons of getting involved in something. I am saying, however, that
there IS benefit to taking on some free work every now and then. It
would be a little like scoffing, “Who in the world would accept an
internship? They don't make any money!” Sure they don't, right now
anyway, but they are the dark horses, the underdogs that know
everyone, have experience, and can begin rising to the top.

First, a brief warning:

DO weigh the pros and cons of
getting involved in a production.
I'm sure many voice actors are familiar with the early phase of their
careers where they audition for everything that might possibly
involve speaking. They are thirsty artists, so to speak, and they
crave work of some sort, even if it doesn't pay, just to get
themselves out there. That hit-the-ground-running mentality is
important for a voice actor to have. As Griffin Puatu mentioned in
our interview about living in Los Angeles, you need to be both
patient and impatient about getting yourself out there.

But there may be
red flags that this cool production you're getting yourself into may
just bite you later. If the project you're auditioning for features
any of the below, reconsider getting invested:

A near-total
lack of relevant information (no background on characters in
auditions, no talk about the nature of the project, etc.)

A project
creator that shows little respect or thoughtfulness regarding the
members of their team or their audience (getting mad at comments,
showing no enthusiasm for working with their teammates, or even just
communicating in tiny, broken snippets rather than coherent
paragraphs)

General...creepiness
(asking for personal information without any preamble, being blunt
without any humor, grace or irony, sending you pictures or
stream-of-consciousness messages about the minutiae of their day
even though you'd have no interest in seeing them react to a YouTube
video and you barely know them)

There
are exceptions, of course. Some projects like to keep their details
under wraps, only doling out info on a need-to-know basis to preserve
their secrets until reckoning day, but so long as they remain
professional and tell potential teammates everything they need to
know, that's generally okay. Additionally, lots of content creators
are found outside the English-speaking realms and may have some
issues with spelling and grammar, but provided the language barrier
doesn't throw up too many obstacles, that shouldn't be a concern
either.

Every so often, though, a project you really should
have thought about before engaging in slips through your filter and
bites you in the rear. There was one video game fan dub I was in a
few years ago, very early in my career, where the project creator
would frequently make group calls to everyone in the project and sing
about his penis. No, I am not making that up, I wish I was. It got to
the point where one of his own teammates with some authority kicked
him out of his own group chat. I am no longer a part of that dub. In
a somewhat lesser instance involving a video game mod, the mod
creator (whom I suspect possessed some sort of disorder that impaired
his social skills) would occasionally Skype call me out of nowhere to
do things like brokenly riff on a YouTube video of video game voice
acting he found displeasing (he had something of a speech impediment,
as I recall). The mod was soon canceled, and I haven't interacted
with him since.

The
point of all this is, you don't have to turn your nose up at free
work, but the internet is open to everyone with a device that can
access it, and that means everyone,
so weigh your options.

But enough of that: what's there to gain from free work?

#1:
Connections to network with.
Content creators are a creative bunch. It's sort of in the title.
They may be working on a free World of Warcraft mod today, but next
year they might open the Kickstarter to their brand new video game.
If you were a good friend and reliable voice actor in their World of
Warcraft mod, guess who they're coming to when they're looking to pay
for the voice acting in their new game? On top of that, as a video
game content creator, there's an excellent chance they know someone
else
who's making their own video game, and if they liked working with you
on their mod, they may recommend you to their friend. Networking
doesn't always have to be showing up in a suit and tie to a social
gathering, although that's certainly nice and I will seize virtually
any opportunity to dress up. Sometimes it's just working with people
on the ground level and making friends.

“Come on,” some of you might be thinking, “you're exaggerating.
Does that actually happen?” Yes. Yes it does. That's literally how
I've wound up in some video games, and I've helped other friends get
into paying video games or big YouTube productions because the
project creator asked me for recommendations. All people I've met
doing free stuff.

#2:
Making friends.
Speaking of which, yeah, you can meet some awesome people doing free
work. It sounds like part of a speech Tea Gardner from Yu-Gi-Oh would
make, but that doesn't make it untrue. Think about it: the people
operating YouTube channels or making video game mods will often share
your same interests – video games, voice acting, artistry, music.
And hey, if you really want to spin a business angle on it (you
corporate mogul, you), they can help you out the next time you need
assistance. Want to learn how to draw and need recommendations for
teachers or classes? Ask your artist friend. Working on a project
yourself you'll need voice actors for? Ask the actors you met doing
that comic dub.

#3:
Experience.
It may not pay, but it is
still a chance to try on a new character and learn something new.
Every so often, I get tempted by this unhealthy mindset (and it is
unhealthy) that it's only a fandub character and therefore I don't
need to try as hard. First of all, that's unfair to the project
creators because, go figure, they want the best for their projects.
Secondly, I would be robbing myself of an excellent chance to learn
and grow. Maybe it's a role I'm not used to, a young, spunky teenager
who yells a lot but has a really emotional scene later. Maybe it's an
old man with the weight of the world on his shoulders. Maybe it's a
comical alien who likes to make fart noises with his tongue. Free
work has plenty of opportunity to try new things which you can then
apply to paid work in the future.

#4:
Exposure.
Hey hey, stop rolling your eyes, I can sense you through my screen.
If the term “exposure” casts too negative a light on it, then
think of it as “expanding your brand.” Working in free
productions leaves your mark there for all to see. It's proof to your
friends, family, and potential followers that you are, indeed, still
doing voice work and also pretty darn good at your job. Beyond that,
it's impossible to tell when a project will really take off and when
it'll flop over when it hits the ground instead of running. It seems
like there should be some magic formula to ensuring success, but
there isn't. That one-off video game you thought would be a nice
voice over opportunity but nothing more will explode into the latest
hit. That incredibly unique, special video game you thought would go
places will make barely enough to cover its expenses before fading
into obscurity. You never know when something will really gain
traction.

#5:
Keeping your skills sharp.
I read once that a true actor never backslides or forgets how to act.
I suspect that's true, though I'm not an acting coach with forty
years of film and theater under my belt, so I suppose I'm not the
greatest authority on it. However, I believe it's entirely possible
to get overconfident or complacent. You may never really forget how
to act, but you can get into the habit of rushing a performance and
not giving yourself time to bring the character out properly, or
deciding not to warm up your voice this time and suffering for it
later. Filling in the gaps between paying jobs with free work can
help you critically examine your voice on a regular basis, giving you
less opportunity to develop a bad habit.

#6:
Validation.
Just like it's important to know when you're doing something wrong,
hearing that you're doing something right is a valuable part of this
career. I have a sneaking suspicion most actors are perfectionists,
and it's easy for us to get trapped in our heads and question if
we're really any good or if people are enjoying our performances. If
we're not careful, that can lead to a downward spiral where we're
convinced we're terrible performers and nobody wants to listen to us,
leading to us cutting back on the thing we love or giving up. Hearing
someone say, “Yeah, you really were
great in that last performance, and we all really enjoyed it” can
do wonders for lifting your esteem when you start to feel
discouraged. You need that validation, that positive reinforcement,
to keep you going.

Any career centered around arts and entertainment is a career of
highs and lows, but isn't that part of the reason we pursue it? A
stable job has a tendency to just plateau, and rarely does it get
much better, even though you're stable. Acting can have plenty of
lows where you beat yourself up for not doing as well as you know you
can, but also some shining highs where you feel like all the
struggling has been totally worth it, even for just that one moment.

#7:
Keeping your voice nice, warm and ready for acting.
Constantly having something new to audition for, or a new batch of
lines to go through, is a great excuse to keep your voice and face
ready for voice acting. I don't necessarily talk a lot when I'm not,
you know, voice acting, and voices tend to grow a little weaker when
they're not revved up every now and then. It can make the difference
between a silky smooth, golden voice that the audience loves to hear,
and a weak-sounding broken one that you swear doesn't actually sound
anything like you. Plus, well, a fully warmed up voice with perfect
diction is just an awesome place to be. It feels good, so keep the
engine warm.

#8:
It's fun.
Welp, we're back to the Tea Gardner speeches. If I were to hazard a
guess, you don't voice act because you think you have to or because
it's easier than working a steady job, right? You do it because you
want
to, because you like
it. Being involved in a production other people will view or play,
and seeing those people happy, is something to look forward to. Point
#8, I suppose, is the first seven points all wrapped up into one. At
the end of the day, you voice act because you love it, regardless of
whether you're paid for it or not.

–

Now, the point of all this is not to say that you should feel ashamed
for not auditioning for every fandub or that you absolutely need free
work to have a healthy career. Far from it; if you're already doing
really well for yourself and you have little time for free work
because it literally cuts into your schedule of making money doing
voice over, don't feel like you really need to put your own career on
hold for it. For the rest of us, focusing too much on free work can
stifle the process of actually advancing on the professional, paying
front, since you may not be spending time, say, sending emails to
potential clients or expanding your rapport with fellow
professionals. All that being said, though, I do think there's a
point to be made about free work, that it does come with plenty of
benefits if you go for it in moderation. Don't be too scared about
taking it on.